Agreeing with the Iranian, Russian, and Chinese Representatives Means You Must be at an ICANN Meeting

In its meeting with the ICANN Board, the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) representatives from around the world provided some highlights of the issues that may be in their forth coming Singapore Communique. Key concerns are: the use of auctions to solve competition for important gTLD strings; promotion of diversity and community interests, and who/what will replace United States Government oversight of ICANN.

On the issue of auctions, the GAC Representative from Iran stated, in furtherance of a position set forth by the Russian Federation Representative, that since the adoption of Section 4.3 of the New gTLD Applicant Guide Book (AGB) (years ago) pertaining to Auctions, “the environment has drastically changed. With 1937 new gTLDs – an auction, although ‘last resort,’ runs counter to public interest. Giving privilege to those who can afford to pay (e.g. Google and Amazon) over those that cannot, but still have a right [or seek to serve an important interest].”

For those of you following the new gTLD process, it’s not just a good spectator sport, but rather has real implications on how the “new world Internet” is going to work.Click here for more.

Singapore — During the welcoming remarks, ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehade opened the meeting by asking the community to embark on the historic process to help determine what organization will replace the United States Government stewardship of the Internet. Only a week prior to the opening of the ICANN 49, the announcement was made that the United States was ready to give effect to its original stated intent, dating back to 1997, and transfer the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions. While the announcement caused quite a stir, the intended transfer has been a long time coming. Click here to learn more.

A new database of reverse domain name hijacking cases has been launched at RDNH.com.

For those of you interested in reading out reverse domain name hijacking cases, your prayers have been answered: enter RDNH.com. The site has been created as a collaboration between Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire.com, David Lahoti, and Nat Cohen (although Allemann clearly states that Mr. Cohen has done most of the work).

Thus far, the trio have listed out approximately 129 reverse domain name hijacking cases. They’re reaching out to the domainer community for more – if you know of any, they’re asking that you get in contact with them.

As more reverse domain name hijacking cases are decided, the site may turn into the go-to resource for those seeking to research precedent and case law. It’s certainly going to be a convenient resource, if not already. The cases are listed out (and sortable) by domain, venue (NAF, UDRP, etc.), case number, and decision date for easy browsing.

ICANN have announced that they will adopt “strawman solutions” regarding trademark rights as the April 23rd deadline for approving the first new gTLDs looms.

On March 20, 2013, ICANN released the following video outlining the protections that trademark holders will receive regarding the impending launch of the new gTLDs. To help protect trademarks, ICANN will implement some of the “strawman solutions” that were discussed, including:

1.) A required, 30-day notice period before the Sunrise periods begin

2.) The extension of Trademark Claims from 60 to 90 days

3.) A provision that allows Trademark holders to add up to 50 “confusingly similar strings” that have already been part of a successful WIPO case

Additionally, President of ICANN Fadi Chehade noted in the video below:

“Let me be clear: if we do not come together towards an agreement on these things we might experience a delay in the program, which I have committed to you that we will be ready for on April 23rd….But without these agreements we might experience a delay.”

Unfortunately for Nominet, they weren’t able to garner the support they planned, and the registrar has admitted they couldn’t win over the masses. Those responding during the consultation period objected to the plan, as many felt they would face a difficult battle to obtain the .uk version of domains they already owned in the .co.uk space.

One respondent noted:

“I believe that over time the .uk domain would rightly become the default domain for the UK and it would certainly be bad for my business if I were unable to secure the .uk registration for our current .co.uk domain.”

Nominet stated: “Many respondents felt that the release mechanism did not give enough weighting to existing registrants, and could lead to confusion if they could not obtain the corresponding domain.”

Respondents were also displeased with the price of the proposed SLDs, with the .uk domains slated at £20 per year. The current fee for.co.uk domains are a much cheaper £5 for a two year registration.

<ahref=”#”>Module 4 of ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook states: “ICANN will not approve applications for proposed gTLD strings that are identical or that would result in user confusion, called contending strings.“

It also describes string contention as:

(1) Two or more applicants for an identical gTLD string successfully complete all previous stages of the evaluation and dispute resolution processes; or

(2) Two or more applicants for similar gTLD strings successfully complete all previous stages of the evaluation and dispute resolution processes, and the similarity of the strings is identified as creating a probability of user confusion if more than one of thestrings is delegated.

Of the 754 applications found to be in contention, only two sets were non-exact match:

ICANN has announced their plans to unveil a global repository of trademark information, the Trademark Clearinghouse, in preparation for the introduction of new gTLDs.

ICANN announced on February 25, 2013 that they will be unveiling a new “global repository for trademark data, the first of its kind in the domain name space” – aptly named the Trademark Clearinghouse.

ICANN’s press release states that the goal of the repository is to increase trademark protection for individuals and companies, which will [hopefully] come in handy when the new gTLDs are introduced.

The structure of the Trademark Clearninghouse will be as follows:

(1) Trademark Validation – on March 26, 2013, trademark holders will be able to submit trademark data to be verified;

(2) Database Administration – ICANN has joined with IBM to manage the database of trademark information.

ICANN reports that the benefits of inclusion into the trademark repository include access to sunrise registration, as well as notification when the trademark holder’s mark is registered by someone else.